Interview

 “I want to help our university to adequately consider and meet the needs of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses”, says Prof. Roswitha Pioch. How the professor of the Faculty of Social Work and Health wants to achieve this goal and what measures are necessary to do so, she explained to Katja Jantz.

KJ (Katja Jantz): You have been the representative for students with disabilities and chronic illnesses since the June of 2010. What are your responsibilities and what to you want to achieve?

RP (Roswitha Pioch): One of my duties is the consultation of students concerned. Furthermore, I want to help our university to adequately consider and meet the needs of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses.

Part of that is a freely accessible campus and a sensible handling of their needs in study management, teaching and also in the group of students. This is only possible if all university members pursue this goal – and only if necessary financial resources, for example for the handicapped-friendly renovation of the campus, are provided.

KJ: What kind of disabilities and chronic illnesses are to be found amongst the students concerned?

RP: Those are physical disabilities such as a walking impediment, visual impairment or impaired hearing.

Chronic illnesses can be allergies that for example rule out the usage of certain rooms, but also very severe illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, depression or psychosis.

KJ: How many students of the UAS Kiel are affected?

RP: We at the UAS Kiel are still at the beginning of empirical research, concerning this question. In our society, we see a significant increase in chronic, especially mental, illness. This circumstance is probably also reflected at our university.

KJ: With what problems do students come to you?

RP: The first contact often happens when concerned students have difficulties because their needs are not considered in the study organisation of the university. The distribution of students to the lectures is normally made by computer. It doesn’t ask if medication intake has to happen at a certain time at home, if it needs to plan breaks, etc.

Furthermore, students often have questions about exam progress, exam dates or compulsory attendance.  

KJ: How do you assess the development of our university concerning this topic? 

RP: The topic will become more important in the future, but there are already a lot of considerations on how we will improve the handling of Diversity – with the diversity of our students – at our university. The diversity of our students is not only an obligation but also a chance for our university. To take this opportunity, we need sound Diversity Management at our university. One the one hand, it includes dealing with disability and chronic illness but also the consideration of the specific situation of students with a migration background. On the other hand, we also need a further development of a gender-sensible approach at our university, that aims for the equality of women and men.

KJ: One of your research areas is the social justice research. What is meant by that?

RP: In my research I want to show that the question how just our society needs to be, can only be answered empirically by political sciences and sociology. For science it is important to examine which ideas of social justice are developed by the members of society.

Concerning this matter, I have examined the ideas of leading politicians in the area of social politics in Germany and the Netherlands. Such empirical knowledge of societal justice orientation helps to explain why our society is the way it is and shows what reform options are compatible and will meet a positive response in our society.

During my time at the Max-Planck-Institute for Society Research in Cologne, I dealt with the interactions between social politics and migration politics. Our perceptions of social justice enable and limit the scopes for action of migration policy. So, also the question of how we deal with people with disabilities and chronic illnesses in our society is a question of participation and social justice in our society that needs further empirical research.